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Eli Lilly backs mobile app for cancer docs

Eli Lilly ($LLY) has invested more in digital overtures to cancer specialists. The pharma giant has sponsored a mobile app for iPhone and Android devices that provides reviews of journal articles, aiming to help keep busy physicians abreast of the latest research in their areas of specialty or interest.

Mobile apps are nothing new for Lilly Oncology, the cancer-focused unit of the Indianapolis-based drugmaker. Last year, the group unveiled a physician-focused mobile app, called Clinical Trial Resource, for searching for clinical trials of cancer treatments from the company and other sponsors. Ideally, the app helps doctors point patients to one of the company's clinical trials, which depend on healthy enrollment efforts.

The latest app, called MDLinx, might treat cases of information overload in the oncologist community. The aim is to provide the free app for oncologists across a variety of specialty areas to corral relevant information from the dozens of journal articles published every day.

"It's just happening very quickly, if you can imagine the number of journal articles coming out," Carla Cox, director of communications for Lilly Oncology, told FierceBiotech IT in an interview. "Doctors trying to keep up with that on a daily basis and apply what they have learned to patient care is critical."

Cox made clear that Lilly itself is sponsoring the app and relying on articles from external sources for content. The company and app provider MDLinx have timed the release of the app around the major ASCO meeting, a target-rich event for promoting the tool with some 25,000 oncologists in attendance.

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